


Trouble When You Walked In

by watchthequeenconquer



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alfie doesn't know how fucked he is, Blood and Violence, Death Threats, First Impressions, First Meetings, Gun Violence, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Season 2, Threats of Violence, Tommy is a fucking mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 16:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14501436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchthequeenconquer/pseuds/watchthequeenconquer
Summary: Little, pretty men with big mouths and bigger ambitions - Alfie Solomons should've known Thomas Shelby had him from the start.AKA Alfie's impressions in that first meeting with a battered Tommy.





	Trouble When You Walked In

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Season 2, I wrote this drabble on Alfie's impressions on his first meeting with Tommy in the bakery when I first began my Peaky Blinders love affair. Up front, this was re-worked late at night and years after writing so no doubt errors abound in an attempt to break the writer's block when I should be finishing other things! I do not own.

Intelligence is a wonderful thing. Hindsight, that malicious sprite dancing just out of your ever-loving grasp, is another thing entirely.

Alfie Solomons wonders what he has done to deserve desertion by both and the apparent loss of all of his faculties in the present moment.

“ _Instrumental in my own fucking downfall_.”

The thought crosses his mind unbeckoned and he growls vocally at the intrusion, fingers jamming emphatically around the handle of the draw to his left side.

How was he supposed to know that an extended invitation to parlay with a Blinder from Birmingham would result in his inevitable incarceration?

“You’re losing the war, Mr. Solomons.”

The man across from him speaks with a calculated indifference that twists things inside Alfie that he thought had a handle on. From this wretched thing, that has come limping through his threshold broken and unaccompanied like he’s owed something, having been beaten within an inch of its life?

“Sit there in my fucking chair and tell me I’m losing my war!”

He’s lucky Alfie doesn’t finish the job then and there, finish him in a fitting disservice. And yeah, things may have escalated somewhat. Alfie may have insinuated in the most hypothetical sense of explanation, the manner in which the cocky little gypsy bastard could be fatally reprimanded for his insolence.

“Ever been to Timbuktu?”

It’s all a very unfortunate business that he’s been pushed into. Fire arms are pointed with an inch for error and he’s spitting, thick beard catching the uncontainable flecks of his rage, forearms shaking in pre-determined exertion at the necessary labour ahead in the dismemberment and felling of that beautiful cabinet.

“No.” is the solemn response.

_No officer, I don’t recall officer…_

“Would you like to?”

A thick trickle of blood unceremoniously interrupts the menacing exchange, and Alfie’s gaze distractedly follows its suicidal descent down the paper-thin, porcelain skin.

“No.” Shelby affirms, wipes the trickle away stoically.

And maybe that’s what does Alfie in. The man across from him, within an inch of his own demise, doesn’t flinch – eyes colder than the unmarked grave his body would’ve been dumped in if Alfie were less seasoned in the uncivilised ways of their world.

Slightly sickened within himself, Alfie throws his handkerchief, an unexpected cease fire as he mutters something about cleaning his face, relenting in begrudging admiration. It’s been a long time since he’s been challenged. The insults he’s thrown and the injuries sustained prior have done nothing to impact what must be a formidable set of balls on the half-dead man sat in front of him, dabbing at his face without feeling.

Transitioning from livid to lively with the ease only afforded to a notorious hardman with a psychotic streak, Alfie engages his potential new partner further, who accepts the shot about the vagrant nose-ring with the same measured silence.

“Tell us your plan, then.”

Police. Pay roll. Protection. Alfie listens to the concise but thorough proposal, brow imperceptive furrowed.

“Do we have an agreement?” Shelby’s face is an expressionless mask, mirroring none of the uncertainty in Alfie’s.

They bicker and barter over the fleshed-out details as only bad men who mean business do, unwilling to completely concede ground before spitting and hand shaking, signing the final deed in blood. And there it is again in the doggedness, the stubbornness, that rise to challenge. It’s been a long time since someone has been willing to openly question the extent of his power.

He is a proud man, but Alfie is willing to admit to himself that the defiance intrigues him. And if this is only a shade of this newcomer already making a name for himself, this Thomas Shelby with his too pretty blue eyes and cheekbones that could inflict more damage than the razor in his cap if you got too close…God help him, Alfie needs to see him at full strength.

“Mazel tov. First shipment’s Wednesday.” Alfie says brusquely, entrapping the other’s deceptively slender hand in his own, his clean nails and mangled knuckles contrasting in the poor light against Alfie’s, calloused, as-yet-unbloodied.

_Let him off officer, he ain’t done nothing…_

“Till’ then.” Shelby nods conciliatorily, showing the first visible signs of life since their exchange began with an exhale and a hardened smile.

The painful shudder in his traumatised frame doesn’t escape Alfie as he stands, waiting for Alfie to lead in an unnecessary display of trust with a gentle incline of his head as he replaces his infamous grey cap.

“ _Trust is for infants and imbecilic_.” Alfie thinks, grabbing his cane and slowing his stride, uncomfortably aware of his new partners determined front despite his ailments, considerable and poorly-concealed.

He doesn’t acknowledge Ollie’s surprise as he leads Shelby through the stuffy confines of his bakery, minimal ventilation to keep the smog from the bread, you see? Nor when Shelby mutters “Alright, then,” before recovering his stride in his departure, stalking from the premise as though something ominous and otherworldly had possessed him as he vanishes into the London smog.

“Is everything alright, Mr. Solomons?” Ollie finally ventures as his employer shifts his bulky frame to immovably occupy the breadth of the doorframe.

“ _I’ve committed a grievous error_.” Alfie thinks, folding his thick arms securely across his chest as if to ward off the inevitable, to settle the churning feeling warring in his gut - anticipation, and something deeper he cannot name that those piercing blue eyes and the smart mouth, the achingly familiar recklessness and lack of self-preservation awaken in him, something dormant and dangerous.

Searching the horizon for his misplaced sanity or whatever shreds of his logic he had thought he had retained in its absence after the war, Alfie cannot shake the feeling he is now unavoidably and irrevocably fucked.

“Little men with towering ambitions. Trouble for the rest of us, Ollie. Nothing but.” He growls. 

And when it came to Tommy Shelby and what he would come to mean, within the confines of their business and the broken boundaries beyond, trouble wouldn't even begin to cover it. 


End file.
